PRESIDENTIAL AFTERTHOUGHTS: CLINTON'S TRUE LEGACY

"We don't have a moment to lose."

So wrote the author of an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times whose tagline
read simply "William Jefferson Clinton is the 42nd president." He used the
space to put forth "a concrete set of challenges and recommendations" that
he's sending to Congress -- what he called the "unfinished business of
building One America." Well, why start so soon when you've got a whole five
days left?

The president has clearly decided to spend his final days in office paying
homage to all the things he did nothing about when he had the power to do
almost anything.

Let's start with his call to "immediately reduce the disparity between crack
and powder-cocaine sentences." That's a great idea -- maybe Clinton can just
erase his own signature from the 1995 legislation that blocked the U.S.
Sentencing Commission's proposal to implement this very reduction in crack
and powder-cocaine disparities. As for his recognition that "we need to
instill trust in our criminal justice system," did he feel this need before
or after the prison population doubled to 2 million on his watch?

Both in the op-ed and at Democratic fund-raisers last week, Clinton has been
questioning the outcome of the election. "By the time it was over," he said
Thursday in Chicago, "our candidate had won the popular vote, and the only
way they could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida."

Now, if he had chosen to speak out during the 36 days when the presidency
hung in the balance, he might actually have had an impact. He could have
used his bully pulpit passionately, daily, nightly, to drum up support for a
hand recount across the state. Or he could have led a rally of citizens
protesting the disenfranchisement of African Americans in Florida. But
instead he was off in England, having tea with the queen.

When it mattered, he maintained an imperial silence. Now that it doesn't,
he's Captain Courageous. Look at his exhaustive interview in November's
Rolling Stone, where he poured his heart out about the failures of our drug
policies as though he were just an innocent bystander. "There are tons of
people in prison who are nonviolent offenders who have drug-related charges
... and too many of them are getting out ... without treatment, without
education, without skills, without serious effort at job placement." How
horrible -- someone should tell the president.

And in his last major foreign policy address, delivered in between farewell
fetes in Great Britain, he opined: "With the Cold War over, no overriding
struggle diverts us from aiding the survival of the hundreds of millions of
people in the developing world struggling just to get by from day to day."
When exactly did he notice that the Cold War was over? Because during his
presidency, as he himself acknowledged, "inequality ... has increased in
many nations." And he went further, insisting that "in a global information
age, we can longer have the excuse of ignorance." Then what was his problem?
Not enough access to power? Couldn't get the media's attention? Or was he
just too busy attending fund-raising dinners?

The president even dared to wax compassionate about the victims of what must
surely be one of the most immoral policy decisions of his administration:
siding with the pharmaceutical industry as the AIDS epidemic ravaged
sub-Saharan Africa. "But we must not also forget," he solemnly intoned,
"that the number one health crisis in the world today remains AIDS in
Africa. We must do more in prevention, care, medications and the earliest
possible development of an affordable vaccine." Noble sentiments. My only
question is: Where was he when his vice president was spearheading what a
1999 State Department report to Congress described as "an assiduous,
concerted campaign" to stop South Africa from making low-cost AIDS drugs
available to its millions of infected victims?

He then went on to say that "the difference in what the world provides and
what the world needs for treatment and prevention of AIDS, malaria and TB is
$6 billion a year. Now that may seem like a great deal of money, but think
about this: take America's fair share of closing that gap, $1.5 billion.
That is about the same as our government spends every year on office
supplies." Then how come this year's federal budget included just $150
million to help fight AIDS and other infectious diseases in Africa? Maybe we
overspent on paper clips and toner and fell $1.35 billion short of our "fair
share."

Over the last eight years, the President has let the good times roll,
tailoring his priorities to the polls and hoarding his political capital as
if he thinks it's redeemable for something when he leaves office. Now, in
the sobering light of the morning after, he's taking stock of the suffering
that was left unattended. It's as if while packing up the Oval Office he
discovered a trove of his idealistic campaign speeches. Unfortunately, there
seems to be a massive disconnect between the crises he bemoans and his role
in allowing or even promoting them.

You can contact Arianna Huffington via e-mail at info@ariannaonline.com or
at 1158 26th Street, Suite #428. Santa Monica, Calif. 90403.